Hello everyone,

We are excited to share with you a preview of version 4.01. On the engine side, we've improved stability and fixed issues causing stuck turns. On the game side, we addressed a lot of UI polish and minor gameplay bugs. Please read below for details.

Steam 

• Select Galactic Civilizations IV from your Steam Library list. 

• Right-click and select "Properties." 

• Select the BETAS tab. 

• From the dropdown, select "Insider" and click Close. (If you don't see this option, restart Steam.) T

Steam should pull down the changed files; if you ever want to return, do the same as above but select "default." 

Epic 

• Open the Epic Launcher 

• Select "Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova - Insider's Edition" 

• Install and play! 

Please note: The opt-in (Insider Build) is an early preview of the next update, and you might experience bugs or other issues.

v4.01 August 5th, 2026 Change Log

Engine

• Fixed a late-game stuck turn caused by two Harvesters targeting the same dead planet.

• Fixed a crash when returning to the main menu with an event popup open, in both single-player and multiplayer.

• Influence victory no longer triggers far too early on very large maps.

• Fixed a crash when exiting a multiplayer game to the main menu

• Fixed a crash when assigning a governor to a conquered world.

Gameplay

• The Terran "Earth: Planet Report" event now reliably occurs in the opening turns.

• Replaced the hardcoded 25% idle Shipyard redirect with a data-driven 100% rate.

• Changed "Soul Binder" event to award three Dread Lord ships to the activating player instead of a pirate faction.

Custom Maps

• Reduced the number of Hyperlanes on the maps (especially on the D20 map) such that they no longer cut through the middle or connect hex corners directly.

• All starting planets moved to the third or fourth orbit ring so they no longer clip the star, and set to matching Paradise worlds for fairness. Starting systems no longer contain extra dead planets or gas giants.

Galaxy Forge / Map Editor

• Generated homeworlds now always sit in orbit slots 3-5 instead of sometimes landing in the innermost orbit.

• The toolbar logo tooltip now shows the "Galaxy Forge" version.

Localization

• Fixed the Political Parties header overflowing in Russian

• Fixed translated strings that displayed raw escape codes instead of the characters they stood for.

UI

• "Fleet Explore" hotkey moved from X to O, so pressing X no longer zooms out and orders Explore at the same time. Existing custom hotkey files keep their bindings.

• Alert tab buttons along the main game strip realigned so the GNN and neighboring icons sit flush.

• The Credit/Income entry on the resource bar now opens the correct government screen, and does nothing before the government screen is unlocked.

• Shipyard ship list alignment corrected, and the sort dropdown now shows a hull icon instead of a blank button that was awkward to click.

• Shipyard queue buttons are no longer offset after reopening..

• Parties tab stat rows split into a label and a right-aligned value, and each party's Favor is now shown under every government.

• Cleaned up the Parties screen to better display Favor, Approval, and bonuses.

• Fixed ship list alignment and the broken sort dropdown.

• Fixed a button offset in the GNN.

• "Empire Court" card colors match the current Court Order type.

• The first row of Executive Order tooltips no longer block the second row.

Federations & Empires Expansion

Gameplay

• Manufacturing bonuses from events, improvements, artifact powers, and Accords, Decrees, and Investments now boost ship production as well as improvement construction. Previously, they only applied to Improvements.

• A world promoted to a Capital now loses any Member or Vassal status and is no longer automated.

• Harvesters no longer target Holding Worlds.

• The "Planning Office" Improvement now correctly applies "Supply Attrition" reduction to Colonies.

Text / Localization

• The Galactapedia "Government Switching" entry now lists ideologies instead of specific cultural traits that had since changed.

• Remove corrupted text from Technocracy's hero ship description.

• Updated the Government unlock requirements in the Galactapedia.

• Fleet ability tooltips now show a localized resource cost label instead of an English "Cost".

• Fixed untranslated cost labels and double-escaped entities

• Federation accord "Cost" label is now localized.

UI

• The "Government Select" screen's description panel is taller and scrolls such that longer descriptions are no longer clipped.

• Empire Court officer cards now tint by the selected order's scaling attribute instead of the leader's fixed attribute, and re-tint live as you select different orders.

• Singularity milestone rows now list the rewards you were actually granted instead of a generic benefit line.

• Cleaned up the Technocracy hero ship's special abilities text: corrupted characters removed, better formatting, working hotspots.

• Fixed a problem where some leaders on the Singularity "Project Status" couldn't be unassigned.

• "Predictive Countermeasures" has its own action icon.

• Added confirmation dialog before Repealing a Federation Accord.

• Oligarchy: Add scrollbar to the Investment Opportunity List

• Added a scrollbar to the Oligarchy Opportunity list.

• Cleaned up milestone reward display in Singularity Screen.

• Removed duplicated text in the "Upcoming Election" notification.